hundred years later Fibich revised this form of music greatly changing and enriching its technique.
His trilogy “Hippodamia,” performed in three evenings is the first example in history, where the modern orchestra supports uninterruptedly recitations of the actors. Fibich prepared himself for this trilogy by writing a great number of concert melodramas of which “The Waterman” became a favorite in Bohemia. These are very fine studies of a new form so often condemned by critics. Fibich proved to be also a very fine master of dramatic form, and it is a pity that his works have not been discovered by the world.[1]
Modern Czech music is represented by the works of V. Novák, pupil of Dvořák. He is the greatest talent of the present Czech music, without a rival. It is only necessary to hear his ocean fantasy for orchestra, soli and chorus “The Storm”, op. 42, to get an idea of his elementary power of creation. Besides this work his “Pan”, Op. 43, poem in tones for piano solo, is one of the most remarkable works of the modern piano composition.
Beside Novák modern Czech musical literature is represented by Joseph Suk, (1874), second violinist in the famous Bohemian String Quartet, an artist of delicate inspiration and originality. His string quartets and symphonic works reveal a strong individuality and the soul of a real poet.
Food Situation in February
That the food situation in the Czechoslovak Republic in February was even worse than during the war is apparent to anyone who follows the Prague papers. All our people complain about lack of meat, flour, fats; even coal is sometimes lacking and the street railways cannot run, because the miners have not sufficient strength to produce the minimum amount of coal needed.
A leading article in the České Slovo of February 11th, entitled “A Cry of Desperation,” describes the situation in very vivid words: “Prague and the entire Czechoslovak Republic find themselves in a critical food situation. We have neither flour, nor fats, nor legumes, nor meat. The problem of feeding the people is becoming more hopeless every day and instead of change for the better which we all expected, we are now faced with the spectre of famine, threatening a real catastrophe.
At present we have in Prague members of a British Food Commission in charge of Col. Sommerhays. The commission saw for itself in all the institutions visited by it, in hospitals, poor houses, orphan asylums, markets, stockyards and warehouses, that feeding the inhabitants of Greater Prague is a desperate problem, far more critical than it has ever been.
The Czechoslovak nation was fully entitled to special consideration on the part of the Allies, because its noblest sons shed their blood for the common cause against the common enemy. And yet no one took the trouble to see to it that the Czechoslovak nation might get at least as much food as to keep alive until the next harvest.
And so we publicly make this charge and ask this question: How is it that the Allies have supplies for Vienna, for Poland, and for other countries, hostile countries, and why are we overlooked in spite of the fact that our best men laid down their lives for humanity and for the common cause? Members of the commission ascertained that in the municipal sanitarium, for instance, 164 inmates out of 300 died in one year, and that the 300 inmates got only nine quarts of milk a day. They saw that in the general hospitals, instead of 500 quarts of milk needed daily for the serious cases, only 60 quarts are available. Babies in the institutions get little more than one-half pint of milk a day, while other babies do not even get that.
The gentlemen of the commission found in the stock yards, that we have practically no beef at all, only calves weighing 70 to 80 pounds. Even if sometimes the same number of head of cattle reaches the yards, the amount of meat is one-sixth of what it formerly was. In the municipal market, hungry people complain that they can get
- ↑ The best of his operas are: “The Bride of Messina”, “Sárka”, “The Tempest” (Shakespeare) and “The Fall or Arcune”.
